


The End of All Things

by Ace_Of_Fleurons



Series: Tell No Tales [1]
Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Action & Romance, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Heavy Angst, Horror, Infected Characters, Infected Leon, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Team as Family, Tragic Romance, Transformation, Universe Alteration, Zombies, but they still banter a lot and it's great, the trope where the pairing acts as parents to a child
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2020-08-23 16:37:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20245966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ace_Of_Fleurons/pseuds/Ace_Of_Fleurons
Summary: Ada Wong, on a mission to retrieve the G-virus, enters Raccoon City on September 28th. Leon Kennedy, ignoring orders to stay away, walks into the Raccoon Police Department on the same day. Both are met with the chaos of a dying city and the partnership they weren’t supposed to have.Undercover yet conflicted of her own goals, Ada clings to anonymity.Infected yet determined to survive, Leon struggles to find answers.Along with Sherry Birkins, a girl who might as well be an orphan, they search for a way to flee the town.However, escaping seems an impossible feat as circumstances and encounters evolve into something much larger and more sinister than what they could ever imagine...





	1. Prologue: The Beginning of the End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ada receives her orders.  
Leon receives his.  
One obeys, while the other makes their own choice.  
Their consequences solidify, unseen, in the distance.

She stood beside the window, hidden by the curtains, with a phone in one hand and pistol in the other. The former continued to ring on the other end, like it always did, and when the wait became too long she shifted it between her shoulder and cheek. With her free hand, she emptied her pistol magazine. Nothing less than a perfectly normal day. At least, nothing less than what Ada Wong considered normal.

The ringing stopped. “Wrong number.”

Ada responded without a hitch. “Alpha Delta Alpha. It’s a secure line.”

The voice complied. “Are you in position?”

“Nearly.” Ada leaned her head into the light streaking through the window panes, squinting at the high-rise of the distant city. “Just a couple miles away now. Looks so peaceful.”

“Looks can be deceiving.” A flock of birds, startled, raced across the sky. “And it won’t stay that way for long. That city will be in flames by the end of tomorrow, and you need to be in there before it is.”

Ada sighed, but was smart enough to keep it hidden from the man on the other line. “I know. Where do you need me to go once I’m in there?”

Papers rustled on the other end, most likely being maps and documents that littered the offices whenever Ada had the displeasure of visiting. “The police station. It’s the quickest - albeit most populated - path to the lab. That is, unless you want to take your chances in the sewers.”

“I think I'm good, thanks,” murmured Ada, scanning her eyes across the silhouettes of buildings. Nothing moved, as if the city itself was holding its breath, waiting for an inevitable spark to set it ablaze.

The next sentence dribbled out of the phone like it was something unsavory. “You’ll probably need a cop’s help once you’re there. It’s not impossible to maneuver alone, but arduous. The station is run by a madman who’s rigged it with more traps than you can imagine.”

Ada grimaced. It’s not that she loathed working with others, she had done it many times in the past. However, ending the partnership was usually more tedious than starting it. One could fake their own death only so many times, and when that didn’t work more drastic measures were needed. The betrayal reflecting on her so-called “partner’s” face never bothered her, but it was just another step to take. If given the choice, she would work alone.

“Will there be anyone left alive?” she asked instead.

“There should be,” responded the man. “Just make sure they doesn’t leave that way.”

Ada nodded, dropping a couple bullets into the pistol’s magazine. “That’s all I needed to hear. You don’t care how G is brought in, do you?”

The man exhaled harshly, presumably attempting a chuckle. “Not unless you bring one of those shambling idiots with you.”

Ada shoved the magazine into her pistol. “I don’t intend to.”

“Good. Oh, and while you’re there” his tone changed to something a little more nostalgic and bitter, “make sure to look for the Nemesis parasite. Someone stole it, and I know exactly who did it. He’s in that city.”

Ada snickered. “Just send me your grocery list while you’re at it.”

The man didn’t share the same humor. “Don’t leave the city without it.” And the line went dead.

Taking the phone from its perch, she threw it on the hotel bed and turned her attention back to the city. Cars drove in and out of it, unaware of their surroundings and their fate. Shadows weaved in and out of the city’s outskirts, continuing on their day. The surrounding forest loomed over them with its sheltering branches. To the people, it posed as an unbreakable shield. However, its thick, ungiving trunks could also act as a prison.

Ada fitted the pistol back into its holder strapped around her thigh. Tomorrow, she would be entering that prison.

* * *

His shadow danced across the walls as he paced around the table. This had to be a prank, he thought to himself as he placed his hands on either side of a crumpled letter he received that morning. An elaborate joke, surely. Why would his future employer warn him to stay away on his first day, and in such an unprofessional and short-noticed manner such as this?

But every time he looked at the official Raccoon Police Department seal ending the message, his confidence wavered. He heaved himself off the table once more and rolled his shoulders in a vain attempt to release stress before pacing again. There was no name signed, no reason stating why he should keep away, and when he called no-one would answer. In fact, some of the other numbers he had been given during his preliminary training didn’t even work: the lines were dead.

And yet, it bore the seal, making the statement official that the new officer Leon S. Kennedy would not start working until the day after September 28th. Leon stood in his apartment, contemplating if he should obey.

Chair legs screeched against the floor as Leon pulled out a seat. He slumped into it, leaning over the note and envelope in which it was encased. His eyes narrowed. He wasn’t one to disobey orders, especially not when he hasn’t even formally started the job, but something about how it was handled bothered him.

“I don’t understand,” he muttered to himself. “If it’s an emergency, they’d need all the help they could get.”

That’s the only thing he could think of at the moment, that this was brought on by an emergency and they hadn’t the time to make a proper note to tell him. Either that, or it was a prank.

Ice warmed in a shot of tequila, glass untouched, beside Leon’s elbow. He originally bought it to celebrate his new career. Now he reached for it, throwing it back, in order to calm his nerves.

Something caught his eye as he lowered his head. Something hidden in the crease of the folded and crinkled letter, reflecting the lamplight that loomed above his head. Carefully, he sat the glass down. Both hands grasped the note. There was no mistaking it: blood stained the page.

Leon shot up from his chair. Thousands of possible reasons as to how and why this stain existed raced through his head. A jilted gang, a crazed officer, maybe even a bomb placed in the compounds… the ideas whirled around Leon’s head as he dressed in his uniform. Whatever situation it was didn’t matter. They needed him.

After changing to his proper attire, Leon dragged his chair over to the oven, planted himself on it, and draped his arms over its back as he watched the minutes wash away. Although traffic was light at this late hour, he couldn’t afford driving drunk and risk getting into an accident at a time like this.

At precisely 11:42pm, he grabbed his supplies and left. He drove the 45-minute long trip, and if the adrenaline didn’t keep him awake his conviction certainly did. The towering skylines and flashing lights of the outlandishly mysterious Raccoon City welcomed him. And, on September 28th 1998, he became ensnared in a trap that was never meant for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be honest, I had no plans of writing a Resi fic. I just happened to be watching a long-play of the third game and this idea kinda knocked me upside the head with the force of a 5-ton truck. You know how it be.
> 
> Is this ambitious for a first-time series? Yes. Do I care? No.
> 
> This particular "chapter" (read: prologue) is pretty short since it's just introducing who the two main characters are and why they're in a zombie-infested city in the first place. I promise the upcoming chapters will be longer.
> 
> This is more of a UA (Universe Alteration) than an AU, and it’s based around the premise if Leon came into the RPD a whole day before he was supposed to. There’ll be more to it than that, obviously, but you’ll just have to read and see what happens. It’ll switch from Ada’s perspective to Leon's every other chapter. I’m really excited about writing it, as there’s a ton of fun changes and character interactions that happen. (*whispers "found parent/family trope" into the night*)
> 
> I didn't know how much to put in the tags, haha. I also rated it mature since I didn't know how violent I wanted to get and didn't want to "underrate" it.
> 
> I know it’s not Matriarch (I promise I’m still working on it), but I hope you all enjoy it, nevertheless! Ada x Leon is one of my all-time favorite pairings, and I'm really excited to get started on this. ^-^


	2. First Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ada encounters Raccoon City in all its burning glory, as well as Leon: the cop who would lead her to its police department's secrets.
> 
> However, it seems like something has encountered him first.

Ada Wong walked into the pristine, placid county of Raccoon City early September 28th at around 7:58am. Eight hours later, when she finally reached the city gates, half of it was in shambles.

Footsteps as numerous as the raindrops fell against the street, mingling with the storm to such an extent that she couldn’t tell the difference between the two. The city’s maze-like roads, although a blessing to the spy, wound back and around themselves like the bowels of a great beast, slowly devouring the crowd within their own numbers. Even those within houses weren't safe. Ada slipped away into the darkness as the sidewalks lit up from doors being ripped off their hinges.

She watched from alleyways as the true panic began. Stragglers fell. Dead rose. Whoever found out that fire could smite the demons didn’t realize that it could spread faster than what they could control, and before long houses crumbled to ashes. Dancing along the buildings’ graves, the trenchcoat-clad woman used the smoke as her partner and the pandemonium as her music.

The police station stood in the heart of the city. Its castle-like steeples rose between buildings and trees, framed against streetlights and lightning. Black iron gates surrounded it, unlocked and forgotten in the panic. Ada crawled behind a smoking car and peeked through a cracked window to survey the fortress. No-one remained to guard it: all their finest had been sent out to protect the citizens.

“Look where that got them,” she mused, reloading her pistol.

Throwing a quick glance over her shoulder, she rested her weapon on the crumpled hood of the car and squinted through the aim. Walking corpses roamed the edges of the station, dressed in civilian clothes. The body of an officer lay on the concrete, half-eaten, close to the gates, and it was impossible to tell if he would spring to life the moment she drew near. The woman grimaced through her sunglasses.

Broken glass skidded across the street as Ada crouched behind the vehicle. Clicking the gun securely back in its holster, she reached into the front pocket of her trenchcoat and pulled out an awkward-looking, modified weapon. She brushed away the dirt from its small screen. It reflected the flames rising higher from the car behind her.

Ada lurched away from the car moments before it exploded. Broken glass and metal skipped across the pavement and centimeters away from her face as she dove behind a nearby dumpster. Her ears rang. She swore under her breath. They had heard her.

Any dead a mile radius from the blast now scrambled to the source. Ada could hear their moans growing more frantic. She pulled the trigger on her modified gun and its screen sprang to life, displaying the image of a hundred blue and yellow circuits beneath her feet. These weren’t the wires she wanted, though.

Springing from her hiding place, Ada aimed the gun at a bank a few blocks away. Through the burning rubble of what were previously buildings, the transmission presented a blue, dormant wire snaking to a bell through the innards of the structure. Selecting it with a swipe of her finger, she pulled the trigger. Brimming with newfound electricity, the wire turned yellow.

An alarm’s shrill ring erupted from the building. The dead turned their white eyes away from the dumpster. Ada ran.

Rain hammered against the stairs as Ada ascended them. Thunder cracked overhead, harmonizing with the twisting knob when she turned it. The door’s opening creaks blended too well with the screams from behind her to be called comforting.

Nevertheless, she had made it.

The Raccoon City Police Department stretched before her in all its majesty. Marble tiles and oak railings surrounded Lady Justice as she stood, immortalized in stone, marking the center of the station. The open space carried with it Ada’s footsteps when she slowly descended the steps into the parlor. It possessed a chill that sank into her bones.

This must have been a beautiful landmark a couple days ago, thought Ada as she glanced at the cargo boxes littering the area. It could have been mistaken for a museum if it weren’t for the police department’s signature sigil claiming every empty area. One could never get too lost in its beauty before it reminded them to whom this place really belonged.

Medical screens, supplies, and discarded weapons scattered the floor of the station. Ada maneuvered through the maze, matching her steps to the drumming of the rain on the roof. All the while, she watched the story painted within the structure. Dirt and grime speckled the walls. Wood panels barred windows, and half-closed shutters made doors impossible to open. This place still lived.

Ada approached the front desk. A computer displaying camera feeds lay on a steel cargo container, surrounded by bullet containers and sticky notes. She reached over and picked up a pack of handgun ammo, jostling it in the process.

“Who’s there?”

Heavy footsteps echoed through the hall. An officer limped into the open, holding his side, and swept a flashlight across the area. His eyes flitted, following the light, and settled on a tipped-over box of 10mm handgun ammo. The glinting bullets that poured forth scattered away from the half-closed door into which the spy ran.

Ada pressed her back against the wall. The officer’s flashlight flickered through the sliver of the door, clashing with whatever light sources lay in the room. When she couldn’t hear his footsteps anymore, she pulled the door closed. She sighed in relief, and then turned her head into the half-broken shadows.

The room came into focus. She stood on an elevated platform that overlooked a medium-sized office, darkly illuminated by tipped-over lamps. They revealed a banner strung across the ceiling above a collection of desks. _ WELCOME LEON _, it announced in its faded, unceremoniously stained colors. The stench of blood emanated from every corner. The sting of gunpowder hung in the air like a veil. Thunder and rain still pummeled the silence, thinly masking the half-broken air unit’s rattles. Ada flung a small LED light from her pocket and covered it with her hand before turning it on. Despite the white noise, she could hear their wails.

Dust particles lit up like embers in the obstructed glow. Ada stared over the railings to the office below, tiptoeing down the stairs that lead into the space. Each step collided with something either brittle or damp. Gradually, she uncovered the light in her hand.

White eyes reflected back at her.

Ada yanked out her pistol. A fresh bullet hole lined within her sights, oozing: it was already dead.

She lowered her weapon, furrowing her brow, and rose the light to the corpse. It stared ahead. Its contorted body leaned into a filing cabinet, rigor mortis keeping it upright.

Ada shifted the light over the adjacent wall. Claw marks ribboned the plaster, and the concrete blocks behind it crumbled as if a giant fist had impacted them. The filing cabinet twisted and caved in on itself. Light red liquids trickled off the sides. Ada squinted as the moving light from her beacon reflected off of the body’s police badge.

“Someone’s been here,” she murmured, her statement more breath than voice.

A chair fell over. Someone groaned.

Ada whirled herself around, pistol ready. The lamplight bounced off the crushed walls. Dimly, it illuminated the overturned books and broken chairs ahead of her. She crept forward, peering over the rims of her shades and scanning the room for movement. Shadows painted flickering black graffiti on the walls. Her own silhouette focused as she approached. Rising from behind her, another figure obstructed the light.

Ada pivoted on her heels. She aimed her pistol and flashed the light into the eyes of a young man. He rose both hands, palms empty and open, to his head. He tilted his face away from the light.

“Don’t shoot,” he croaked. His voice was strong, but damaged. “I’m not one of them.”

Ada stared at the man, taking slow steps forward as she inspected him. She must have missed him as she walked in: he stood on the opposite end from where she found the corpse, caked in grime and blood. Legs of a half-broken chair that he presumably had been laying under sat awkwardly between his feet. Dribbling off from somewhere on his body, blood stained the wood.

The closer she approached, the more details that came into view. He looked young, no older than twenty-one. His blond hair, stiff and shapeless from dried rain, danced in the face that remained turned away from the woman. His pale, closed eyes twitched as she drew the light closer. Ada clenched her jaw. He looked ill.

“Who are you?” asked Ada, turning the end of her pistol away.

The man rose his chin, opening his eyes. They were white.

Ada inhaled sharply and pointed her weapon at him. Startled, the man recoiled and tripped over the legs of the chair still entangled under his feet. He collapsed crookedly against the desk. Both of his hands rose involuntarily to shield himself.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he retorted, coughing. “What on earth are you doing?”

Ada kept her distance. “That's what I'm wondering.”

He stayed silent. His body tensed as she kneeled in front of him. Once more, the light of a police badge reflected in her eyes.

“You’re a cop, huh,” she observed, adjusting the bulb away from his chest and surveying the rest of his uniform.

He didn’t respond. Instead, he grabbed Ada’s ankle. “Look out!”

Ada, not understanding, pointed her gun at him. He tripped her, causing her shot to miss and burst through the shoulder of a walking corpse. The light fell from her hand. Stained teeth flashed in the darkness.

Laying on her side, Ada struggled to catch her breath from the fall. The officer scrambled to stand and tried aiding her to her feet.

“It’s my first day,” he answered, expression falling a bit when she refused his help. He motioned to a door near the corner of the office. “How about we continue this conversation somewhere safer?”

Ada, shooting a bullet into the corpse’s skull, brushed herself off. “What a first day it is,” she remarked before answering, “Sounds pleasant. Lead the way.”

The officer lead her to a door across the office. He unstrapped a large handgun from its holder, carefully sliding open the exit as he took the safety off. A hallway leading in two directions greeted them. Rain as loud as screams echoed throughout the passage.

The officer bit his lip. “There’s a dark room near the stairs to the right,” he muttered. “But if that’s blocked, we’ll have to circle around the station looking for another space we can close off from threats.”

Ada narrowed her eyes, peering down the right hallway to the silhouette of a large staircase that sat against a series of windows. She slipped past the cop, her stilettos clicking as she walked down the hall.

The cop, eyes wide, stepped out and reached to pull her back. “What are you doing? There could be more of them out there!”

Snapping her arm away from his grasp, Ada glared at him. “What, like this one?” Without looking, she drove a bullet between the eyes of a walking corpse shambling towards her. It fell at the young cop’s feet. “Shoot when needed, run with everything else. Let’s go.”

He stood there for a moment, blinking as she whirled around, and finally forced his legs to run after her.

Only one other straggler remained in their path, one that they avoided with an awkward jolt away from its decomposing hands. They rounded the corner leading to the dark room with minimal interruptions.

The cop locked the door behind them when they entered. His half-white eyes, in the darkness of the small room, struggled focus on Ada as she searched for a switch with her flightlight.

“So,” she began, reloading her pistol as she searched, “I’m guessing you’re Leon?”

He paused. Slowly, he opened his mouth in the beginning of an inquiry.

Ada interrupted. “When you said this was your first day after I saw the banner in the office, I pieced two and two together.”

After another heartbeat, the hints of an incredulous smile began to play on Leon’s lips. “Yeah. Leon Kennedy, ma’am,” he responded. With a quick scowl, he drew a hand to his left shoulder. “Would it be too bold of me to ask who you are?”

The woman stopped snapped her light back into those half-bleached eyes, grimacing behind her shades. Her hand hovered over the pocket where her fake FBI badge lay.

In response to the silence and partially-blinded to her suspicious expression, he added, “Give a dying man some respect, please.”

Ada paused. A smirk tugged at the corners of her lips. “You’re not dying, Kennedy.” Shifting the light so that it did not blind him, she stared into those glazed eyes once more. “I think you’re past that point,” she added under her breath before she continued her search.

Leon opened his mouth to respond. Ada interrupted. “Ada Wong.”

He blinked. “What?”

“You ask for my name, it’s Ada Wong.” She turned to him and pulled out her badge, shining her light on it. The reflection flashed into Leon’s eyes. “I’m an FBI agent investigating the cannibal disease.”

Leon shifted his face, speckling the polygonal crystals of returned light across his hollow skin. “I think you came here just in time,” he remarked.

Ada laughed dryly, a sound without any humor. She tucked the badge and flashlight back in her coat as she flicked on the newfound lights. “I’d say the same,” responded she.

He was infected. This much she knew, but how long he had been like this and how much longer he had until he completely turned, she knew not. She watched him as he adjusted to the light, shuffling around the table in the middle of the room with curiosity and caution reflecting in those half-dead eyes. However, even if he was infected, he was a cop. Even if he only knew the most basic of routes in this God-forsaken place, it was more than what she knew. But how much longer would that memory remain? She frowned at the wall.

Leon ran his hand along a typewriter on the table. “So, did you happen to bring the rest of the FBI with you?”

Ada answered without turning her head. “No. I’m more of the scout than anything else.” _ And the scapegoat _, she mentally added with a roll of her eyes and passing thought of her “employer.”

Clearing his throat, Leon’s voice gave a bit as he commented, “That means that you’ll probably be needing a partner, huh?”

Ada snapped her attention to the cop. Incredulously, she glared at him from over her shades.

Leon, intimidated, studdered an addition. “Well, I mean, we’ll have a better chance of surviving if we team up. I want to get to the bottom of this as much as you do, and—

“Absolutely not,” interrupted Ada. “This is federal business, and you have no right to interfere.” She stopped herself short.

Leon hesitated, holding onto the hope of a counter, but turned away. Ada pinned him with her glare, but too many thoughts whirled around in her head to see. This was the choice that would either make or break her mission. This was the choice that would lead to her success or demise. This was the choice she could not afford to delay. She knew that. And yet now, when faced with such a fateful decision, she could not bring herself to answer.

Taking a deep breath, she turned to face Leon completely. “You know…”

The cop perked his head to her. She hesitated.

“I might actually need some help on this,” she managed to state through her pride. “You know the layout of this place, right?”

Leon nodded. “Like the back of my hand.”

Ada sighed. She pushed her shades closer to her face despite them being high enough on the bridge of her nose. “Fine. In order to get through this before the whole city implodes on itself, it seems like both of us will be needing a temporary partnership.”

Leon’s half-glazed eyes lit up with whatever life he still possessed. Cracking a small smile, he nodded again. “Sounds like a plan, ma’am,” responded he.

Ada glared at his cheery tone. “You know I can’t promise your safety,” she snapped. “Or that we’ll even find answers in the first place.”

Shrugging and lifting his arms out, Leon managed to chuckle through a cough. “That’s not much of a change from what I had before,” he pointed out. “Just as long as we stick together, I think we’ll be fine.”

Ada felt sick. This man and his optimism was going to kill her. Although the split-second temptation of shooting him now to get over it crossed her mind, she waved it away with a shake of her head. “Alright then, Kennedy.”

She crossed the room to face him on eye-level, ignoring the obvious signs of infection and repeating over and over in her mind that this was for the sake of her mission. Awkwardly, Leon offered his hand as though they were going to shake on it. Unamused, Ada crossed her arms.

“Starting now, we’re going to try and make it out of this hellhole alive,” she stated.

Leon dropped his arms to his sides, but maintained his bright expression. “You’ve got yourself a partner,” he responded.

Once more of presumably many more times it would happen that day, Ada felt her stomach flip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been sitting on this for awhile since I didn't really know how to end it, haha. I'm used to writing flash fics so this is sort of a change, but I'm enjoying it. This is also my first time writing a slow burn fic, but it's a ton more fun than what I thought.
> 
> There's a lot more detail in this chapter than in the previous one. I'm sort of experimenting with what style works best for this particular fic, so hopefully it still reads well!
> 
> I'm excited to get onto the next chapter: Leon's infection will be delved into deeper in that one. Hope you all are enjoying this thus far!


	3. Seeing S.T.A.R.S.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leon and Ada meet another survivor in the station, and a search is made for a missing child. A tentative team forms.

A part of Leon didn’t know if he should trust the FBI agent in the trenchcoat. But he didn’t have much of a choice: he needed a cure.

Leon rubbed his left shoulder again, rolling his neck but stopping when a sharp pain zigzagged through his spine. He didn’t know how much time he had, or if he even had any, but he knew that both him and Ada had a better chance at surviving if they teamed up. He stared across the table at her now as she jotted on a notepad.

Ada darted her eyes up to him from over her shades. She stopped writing. “What?” she asked, spitting the word out as if it were sour.

Leon shook his head. “I didn’t say anything,” he responded.

“Yeah, but you wanted to. Spit it out.”

Sighing and pulling up a chair, Leon collapsed into it. He hadn’t realized how weak his legs were until they were sprawled out in front of him. His ankle looked swollen. “I was wondering if you wanted me to draw out a map of the station,” he explained. “It’d be easier to keep track of where we are that way.”

Ada ran her thumb along the pen in her hand. She darted her eyes back down to the pad. Slowly, she ripped off the used paper from the notebook and handed over both tools to Leon. “Have at it.”

Leon reached out, taking the notepad and touching Ada’s hand as he grasped the pen. Her fingers tensed for the brief moment their skin met, and he quickly pulled away. She was warm. But he knew she felt this way to him because he felt so entirely, deathly cold.

“Thank you,” he murmured, getting started on the sketch. Ada didn’t answer.

The wind howled outside the door, presumably let into the station by the broken windows near the stairs. It nearly drowned out the moans of the dead, the only distinguishing factor being that the wind’s screams died. Whatever shambled outside their safe room clung desperately to whatever masquerade of life for which they longed, and they sang out in their tortured dance.

A couple seconds into Leon drawing the map, Ada stood up and began to walk around the room, exploring the darkroom through the doorway on the opposite end of the table. Leon found himself distracted by the _ clinks _ of her heels, skewing his focus and causing his hand to wander on the page. It wasn’t just her footsteps distracting him, however: it was everything. The rain pounding the station’s roof, the painfully oversaturated colors of the room, the throbs that sprung up from nothing across the nerves of his left arm… His brain couldn’t focus on one thing for more than five seconds. He sighed, leaning back in his chair.

Ada peered out from the darkroom. “Have you finished yet?”

Shaking his head, Leon held his head with his hand. It shook ever so gently. “Not yet,” he answered, scooting his chair closer to the table. Ada’s heels clicked again as she strode over to him. He narrowed his eyes, struggling to regain focus. “I’m trying to remember where exactly everything is. Wouldn’t want us to get lost in a time like this.”

Ada huffed a laugh and leaned over the stilted, awkward sketch. “You can say that again,” responded she, pulling down her shades to observe it.

A long bout of silence floated in between them as Leon picked back up the pen and began again through the mental tour of the police station. He could feel Ada’s warmth as she leaned closer to the drawing, and in turn closer to him. His eyes wandered off the page and to her fingers as they flexed against the table. He saw each muscle work involuntarily, voluntarily, dependently, and independently over her knuckles to move her hand across the paper and point to a specific location.

At first, Leon couldn’t hear her question. It was drowned out by the rhythmic beat of rain that now hammered louder against his temples. It was only until Ada called his name that he heard her.

“Leon,” Ada rose her voice and pointed again at the paper, “is this where the lab’s kept?”

“What?” Leon blinked at her a couple of times, furrowing his brow. She began to repeat her question with a roll of her eyes, but he interrupted. “No, I heard you. What do you mean, ‘lab’?”

Straightening, Ada darted her eyes from Leon to the page. She shifted her weight to one leg. “I mean just that,” she retorted. “The lab, the place where all the funding for this station came from. Is this”—she bent over again to point at the large statue of Lady Justice—“where it’s kept?”

Once more, Leon gaped at the woman. Slowly, he turned back to the paper and stared at the poor sketch of the Lady Justice statue with her three emblems. “I… I don’t know. I didn’t even know that the station had a lab in the first place,” he confessed. He glanced up to Ada. “And I didn’t know that the FBI had that information.”

Ada exhaled sharply, placing a hand on her hip. “There’s a lot of information we have you don’t know,” she countered.

Unable to find an answer, Leon looked back at the slip of stained paper. “Well, I guess it would be as good of place to hide an entrance to a secret lab as any. Either that, or we could try and cut through the underground jail.”

“I think our chances are better with the statue." Ada unhooked the gun from the holster under her coat and began to reload it. She nodded to the paper. “Finish up the map so we can leave.”

Leon rested both arms on the table, shaking his head and chortling a little bit. “Yes, ma’am,” he quipped, and saw out of the corner of his eye Ada squirm a bit.

With a new goal, Leon found his focus. Although it ebbed and flowed like waves, he was able to harness what he had in order to finish the rest of the first floor. He explained to Ada that he could lead them around the second floor with relative ease, to which she responded with an apathetic shrug and an unexcited, “Lead the way, Kennedy.” Leon complied.

Leon opened up the door leading out into the hallway, cautiously looking both ways before stepping out. Ada followed, albeit less careful and holding the makeshift map in one hand. In the other, she held her pistol. Leon glanced back at her as she rested that arm’s elbow on her hip, frowning at the map.

Leon cleared his throat. “So, what exactly is in this lab?” he asked. Readying his handgun, he peered around the hallway corner. “I know that there's a facility down there from the station's museum days, and that Chief Irons had some connection to that pharmaceutical company Umbrella... but I doubt there's a connection. Why would they have their labs underneath the station?”

Ada didn’t respond, and instead continued to glower at the paper.

Sighing, Leon turned back around to the hallway and recoiled at a walking corpse two centimeters from his face. He aimed his gun and fired through its eye, blowing part of its head off and splattering decayed brain and bits of its skull across the wall. It fell at Ada’s feet.

Ada, without looking, pointed her pistol at the corpse to show she was still paying attention. “We’ll find answers once we get there,” she finally answered, peering over at the body and shoving the map into her pocket. Briskly, she walked ahead of Leon.

The latter lagged behind, staring after her as the rain continued to rhythmically hammer the roof. His left arm hurt. He quickly caught up to her.

Before long, they found themselves back in the main hall. The wide, open space compared to the cramped dark room staggered them as they walked into the center of it all, taking in the echoing silence and clearer air. This time around, the hall was completely devoid of any other life.

Leon limped towards the statue of Lady Justice, the smoke still writhing from the barrel of his handgun and burning his nostrils. Once more, his focus weakened. His steps faltered a bit.

Ada peered over to the cop. “What’s going on over there?” she called, beginning to follow his lead. “Any signs of the entrance?”

Lifting his head, Leon gazed at the statue of the ginormous maiden. She stared across the hall with blank eyes, her face stained from age and rain. The folds of her dress draped elegantly around the curves of her arms and body, flowing around her feet that planted themselves sturdily upon a wooden plaque. The names of past heroes adorned the gold plates, surrounding a cryptic poem that lay below three impressions in the oak. They looked as though they were supposed to hold something.

“I guess you could call this a sign,” responded Leon, turning to face Ada as she approached him. “But it isn’t exactly a good one.”

Ada scanned the plaque, her eyes moving too fast to possibly be reading it. Placing a hand on her hip, she shook her head. “What kind of madman makes it _ this _ complicated to open a door?” she muttered.

Ignoring that comment, Leon turned back to the statue. “I’ve heard rumors that there were underground passageways underneath the station from its days of being a museum,” he mused, “but I never thought they’d still be in use.”

Ada drew a hand over the impressions. “The emblems on the map,” she began, pulling out the sketch from her pocket. “They’re missing.”

Leon glanced over at the paper, nodding. “That must be the key to getting it open.”

“Getting what open?”

The couple whirled around at the unfamiliar voice. A pair of footsteps reverberated throughout the hall, slowly rising above the storm. Climbing up the stairs towards the center of the hall, a woman with short brown hair emerged from behind the makeshift screens. She adjusted her teal tube-top, scanning the two survivors with a quirked brow.

Leon’s eyes widened. The focus he had been struggling to maintain all at once sharpened, narrowing so tightly that his vision trembled and darkened around the edges. For a split second, all pain in his body alleviated, leaving him with the overwhelming sense of both light-headedness and crushing gravity. Gradually, he became aware of a word being repeated over and over in the back of his mind, somewhere he couldn’t quite reach or fully control. It pushed through his lips and emerged before he realized he was even talking.

“S.T.A.R.S.,” Leon murmured.

Ada flashed him a look, but it seemed that the strange woman hadn’t heard him. Instead, she crept ever closer to the pair with a concerned expression on her face and hand on the gun at her hip.

“Are you okay?” she asked, staring into Leon’s half-white, bloodshot eyes.

And just like that, the needle-point focus was gone. Leon felt the floor spin beneath his feet in effect to the speed at which it left him. He cleared his throat, looking away.

“Hanging in there,” he still managed to reply, returning her smile without wholly meeting her gaze. He rested a hand on the plaque to regain his balance and attempted to change the conversation. “Who might you be?”

Ada knew the answer to that question. Her whole body stood rigid, frozen in place with half herself turned away from the newcomer. She gaped with eyes unseen. “You’re part of S.T.A.R.S.”

The so-called "S.T.A.R.S." member blinked at Ada, somewhat distracting her from Leon’s condition.

“And who are you to know?” she asked, suspicious. She scanned Ada’s coat for any clues that could explain why she knew her. When her eyes flitted to Leon again, they stopped on his badge.

Leon strode up alongside Ada, who recoiled away from him. “Ada’s here on behalf of the FBI,” he explained for his silent partner. “It’s my first day on the force. Name’s Leon.”

The woman hissed through her teeth. “My condolences, Leon. What a day to start,” she sympathized. “Although, it’s always a pleasure to meet a new member of the force. I’m Jill Valentine, and your partner’s correct in her observation.”

Turning to the so-called agent, the woman named Jill narrowed her eyes. “So, Ada, that explains how you know me. I’m sure you’re also well aware who’s behind all of this.”

Rain hammered harder against the rooftop. Ada pushed her shades closer to her face. “That’s why I’m here,” she answered sharply. “I was sent to find out who released the cannibal disease to the public.”

“Look no farther,” Jill replied. She pulled a brochure of Raccoon City out of the pocket of her black, stained miniskirt, holding it out for the pair to see. A red-and-white emblem of Umbrella stared back at them. “S.T.A.R.S. was sent to investigate the cannibal disease in the Arklay Mountains. Turns out Umbrella released the T-virus into the wild, and it spread to the surrounding areas. Raccoon was unfortunate enough to be one of them.”

Quirking a concerned brow, Leon leaned in closer to the pamphlet. “I thought that Umbrella founded Raccoon,” he stated. “Why would they want to infect a population of their own people?”

Jill, still watching Leon carefully, folded the brochure back into her pocket. “Only they know." She shrugged. "All that we know now is that it happened, and that we’re living with it.”

Leon leaned back, keeping his eyes on anything but her. He dug back in the corners of his mind to what they told him during training. “Is that the top-priority mission all S.T.A.R.S. members were sent out on?”

Jill sighed, losing herself in memories and steepling her fingers along the sides of her head. “Don’t remind me. It’s the reason why this whole mess is happening in the first place.”

A silence fell over the group, begetting without words the rest of her explanation. It never came. Instead, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them, her voice rang out with unwavering determination. “That’s why I’m here, I’m just trying to get out of the city. What’s your story?”

Ada shouldered her way into the conversation, her shades hiding the annoyance on her face but not in her voice. “We’re trying to escape this deathtrap in one piece. But before we do that, we’re finding answers.”

Jill darted her eyes from the agent to her partner, allowing the silence to stew between them. She sighed. “Good luck with that.” Hopeless honesty coloring her tone. Despite this, she smirked and winked at the pair. “I guess we need someone doing the dirty work, huh?”

Leon smiled. Ada crossed her arms.

Shifting her weight, Jill placed a hand on her hip. “Well, I’ll do all I can to help,” she offered. “I’m only passing through, but I’m not just going to leave you two without doing something. I heard you needed a hand?”

As if shocked, Leon jumped. “Yeah, actually. Have you seen a little girl around here?”

Ada snapped her head to the cop so quickly that her shades nearly fell off. “A what?”

“Excuse me?" Jill quirked her brow. "A little girl?”

Ignoring both women’s confusion, he nodded. “Yeah, I saw a girl running around here when I first entered before I was attacked. She had blonde hair, and was wearing blue shorts—”

“Wait,” Ada interrupted. “You were attacked? By what?”

Leon took a deep breath, trying to collect his thoughts in the storm of questions. “It… It wasn’t a person,” he responded to Ada, side-stepping with his words around the true motive behind her question. He didn’t meet her gaze. “I’m fine now, it doesn’t matter. What _ does _matter is that I saw a little girl in the station before I blacked out, and she didn't have any parents or guardians to help her. We need to find her before the corpses do.”

Ada locked her jaw and crossed her arms. Her opinion was made overwhelmingly apparent without words. Jill, on the other hand, softened her expression.

“I didn’t see a girl when I passed through,” she began quietly , “but I do know where the emblems are to that door you need opened.”

Ada slumped with relief, but quickly composed herself before Leon shot her an excited glance. Jill turned to one of the two staircases surrounding the memorial.

“We were going through renovations, and I can bet you anything that the emblems were moved to the higher levels during the process. It might take a while.” She paused, a small smile creeping on her lips as she tapped her chin. “Looks like you’ll be able to find that little girl after all.”

Ada rose her head to the ceiling, frame trembling slightly. Leon looked over at her and swore he could feel the rage coming off her in waves.

Jill continued. “There might be an exit for the three of us if we can get this thing open, but it’ll take a while to find the emblems. You two go on ahead and try to find any survivors and come back here when you’re finished.” She winked at them. “If I haven’t found the emblems by then, I’ll turn in my badge.”

Leon grinned. “I hope it doesn’t come to that,” he replied.

Ada remained silent.

Jill began her trek up the stairs. “We’ll rendezvous in about an hour,” she called down, and then gave the pair a small salute. “You’re lucky to have a cop as your partner, Ada. Trust him, he knows what he’s doing.”

Leon beamed. Ada bristled.

* * *

Beyond the main hall, the station was ravaged.

The pair traversed through half-destroyed hallways as leaking rainwater reflected in dim sight of Leon’s flashlight. They kept their steps light as to allow the moans of the dead a better environment to sing. Their performances echoed from every direction.

Attempting small talk, Leon whispered, “It’s good that we ran into Miss Valentine.”

Ada shrugged. “We could have figured it out on our own.”

“Maybe,” he admitted, rounding a corner. “But probably not as quickly as if we didn’t find her.”

Ada didn’t answer. She stared at the map Leon had scribbled in vain.

Leon sighed and turned his attention down the halls. Whether it was the rising fever in his chest or the repetitive, maddening rain beating against the roof, he couldn’t concentrate on what was in front of him. His mind kept going back to Jill Valentine, to her position in S.T.A.R.S., to why she was here in the first place... No matter how much he shook the thoughts away, they always came back stronger. He instead focused on a deeper, more pressing question that had been following him ever since he met Ada. It was a question that reverberated in his head, frequently changing in its wording but gripping stubbornly onto its motive. Unable to hold it in any longer, he asked its newest rendition.

“What do you have against a kid?”

Ada, stopping in her tracks, straightened as though she had been slapped. “What?”

Leon turned to her, attempting to pin her down through her shades. “I get you’re trying to save a whole city, and a single life isn’t worth a thousand, but this is a child. You really feel nothing about a little girl who’s probably out there, lost and parentless, fighting for her life against the living dead?”

The rain hammered down harder as if it tried to break into the station. Ada darted her eyes down across the paper in her hand, over the curved and thoughtfully-drawn map of the floor, and her cold, stone-still mask finally faltered.

Ada rose her head to the cop. “It’s not that I don’t feel anything,” she whispered, unable to raise her voice above a murmur. Her form relaxed as though she had let go of something heavy. “It’s probably that I feel too much. And that can get you killed in my line of work.”

Leon didn’t answer. He softened his brow, staring as the agent as she fixed her shaded eyes on the end of the twisted hall. He tried to come up with something, anything, but the words couldn't form. And even if they did, they would be a pathetic attempt at a proper response that quite frankly didn't exist.

Ada continued. "Caring isn't in my job description." She turned her attention to Leon, expression hardened into her familiar, stoic mask once more. But this time, he sensed a new warmth coming from beneath it, one he felt when she gave him her notepad. "But it is in yours. I'll stick to mine, and I suggest you follow your own code."

Chuckling to himself, Leon shook his head. He stared at his crooked feet. A half-beat of hesitation passed, and words began forming before he even realized he was talking. "That's kind of what got me into this mess in the first place."

Ada furrowed her brow. Leon snapped his half-glazed eyes to her, a bright heat flushing his cheeks.

"I, uh... Remember what I said back there?" he stammered. "With Jill?"

Slowly, Ada nodded.

Leon sighed. _I guess I've said too much to keep it a secret any longer,_ he thought with a hand to his throbbing shoulder. _And we _are_ partners, after all, so she should at least know..._

Carefully, Leon slung his weapon and undid the top buttons of his uniform.

Ada nearly hit an end table she recoiled so violently. One hand splayed out in front of her, the other was balled into a fist and held up in preparation to knock the living daylights out of him. It stopped stopped in mid-swing as soon as she saw the reason behind his "undressing."

He didn’t need to pull the shirt far to reveal the inflamed, festering wound on his left shoulder. Blood and pus seeped through half-healed scabs that tried desperately to fight the infection. Blue, black, and red veins etched his skin like the gnarled roots of a tree, traveling up the length of his neck and dripping down under his shirt, drawing over his chest nearing where his heart lay. It was only a matter of time before they reached it.

Leon stared at his wound, quiet fear reflecting behind his eyes, and gingerly placed a hand against it. “I was bitten as soon as I came in,” he muttered, spreading his fingers. Underneath them lay the imprints of teeth. “He was… _it_was an officer. I couldn’t bring myself to shoot.”

Ada stood frozen in place, staring at the wound. Slowly, her hands lowered. Her shades lay crooked on her nose, allowing Leon to see her wide brown eyes behind the darkness. They were concerned.

"How long," she carefully began, "has it been? Since you've been bitten?"

All at once, he felt the weight of her stare as if it were a crushing weight placed on his back. He felt like a watched animal. "A couple hours."

Hands that trembled slightly readjusted her shades. She struggled with keeping his eye contact. "And you're feeling alright?" She must have known. Her voice was steady, level—far from surprised.

_ And why should _ I _be surprised about that?_ Leon's eyes darted down to his hands, to his partially-exposed chest, to Ada's healthy complexion. _I haven't looked in a mirror since I've left my place. For all I know, I could look like a corpse. Jill obviously thought that._

“I’ll find a cure,” he insisted. Wincing, he buttoned back up his uniform. “If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that. It’s one of the reasons why we're working together, right?”

Ada rose a single eyebrow, affirming nothing.

The storm called back its assault, the rain becoming a little more than a hollow echo in the half-empty halls. A silent sigh escaped Leon's dry, blood-crusted lips, and he limped ahead of Ada. His left leg dragged against the tiles, disturbing the dust and rubble, leaving a trail of aging blood behind him.

Ada stared after him, her chest twisting with clashing emotions. If it weren't for the conviction stabilizing his shoulders, or the attention tinging his glances, or the emotion weighing his tired breaths, she would have mistaken him for a corpse. She rose her voice.

"Whoever made this disease must've had a backup plan." She saw something reflect in the dying light of Leon's eyes as he turned to her. Something hopeful. Taking a deep breath, she added quickly, "When we find them, I bet we'll also find a cure."

Leon blinked in surprise. Ada cleared her throat, marching through the hall before he had a chance to respond. 

“Come on," she commanded. "Let’s find this kid before we get too off-track.”

Smiling, Leon paused and watched her confidently stride ahead of him to the bend in the hall. He watched as she calmly peered around the corner, waving at him to signal the coast was clear.

He nodded, unslinging his weapon, and followed after her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for how long this took! On top of finals happened between the previous chapter and this one, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how I wanted to end this. I had an outline, but by the end of the first draft I was stuffing wayyyyyy too much into the poor chapter to make any coherent sense. Hopefully it still reads well, though!
> 
> Y'all probably know where I'm going with Leon. It's gonna be a wild ride.
> 
> I'm super excited to get into the upcoming chapters, it's gonna get serious! Hope you're all enjoying it so far. ^-^


	4. Daughter of G

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leon and Ada find a secret facility beneath the station, as well as the missing girl. But who is she, and is this the lab they're looking for? A monster—and Leon's rapidly-growing infection—stops them from finding out.

How much longer Leon had before he turned didn’t matter at the moment. Ada had a gun and a packet of bullets stowed away inside her trenchcoat, and given Leon’s disposition she didn’t think it would take much persuasion to put them in his head. What did matter is that they were directly above the lab, and they had found a ladder.

Ada peered down the tunnel beneath the manhole cover in the garage that Leon removed. The latter stood a little further away, holding his left arm and grimacing. She had offered to lift it for him to take some of the strain off his injured shoulder, but he wouldn’t listen—he was right-handed, he insisted, and was perfectly capable of moving it with one arm and two functioning legs. After finding a crowbar, they decided she would prop it up with the newfound tool while he lifted it off.

Three minutes and a upper-body workout later, Leon nursed his wound like a kicked puppy with its tail between its legs.

She gestured to the hole with her head. “Think you can make it down the ladder?”

Through his grinding teeth, Leon nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I can do it. I don’t think I pulled anything, I hardly used this arm…”

Despite her best efforts, Ada worried. This cop was becoming more and more like a burden with each passing second, and given the intricacies and convolutedness of Umbrella there was a good chance that a cure didn’t even exist in the first place. She’d be forced to let him tag along until the flesh practically fell off his bones, and by then she’d need to waste a round on him. It was pointless.

_But, _she reminded herself, _he knows this place better than I do. _After all, _he_ was the one who led her to the basement, _he _was the one who shot those undead K-9 units, and_ he _was the one who figured out that the garage was practically on top of the underground facility. Whether she liked it or not, they would need to be partners till the bitter, bloody end. However far away that was, anyway.

Stuffing her handgun in its holster, she began to descend down into the hole. “You ready?” she asked, peeking her head over the floor of the garage.

The slitted lights that drifted from the streets through the garage’s closed shutter bathed him in white, outlining his figure in a silvery haze. He glanced up from reloading his gun to the best of his abilities with one hand.

“Yeah, just about.” He slapped the magazine into the Matilda with the top of his thigh. “Let’s go.”

The pair lowered themselves into the growing darkness, Leon a couple rungs above the agent. Beside the occasional hiss of pain, Leon managed to hold onto the ladder with relatively no trouble. A couple times Ada held her breath in preparation for the man to fall on top of her, but the moment never came. Both survivors placed their feet on the ground without further complications.

Heavy machinery and countless levers on a wide control panel greeted them. Above the operational counter hung a window overlooking a catwalk winding above a maze of pipes and generators. A crane used for moving cargo crates lay dormant among the skylines of machinery. Artificial fog, chemical-laced smoke, and mechanical grinding all but penetrated through the glass. Reflections of the light fixtures above the duo prevented them from seeing too far into the facility.

Leon limply waved a hand around the room. “Here it is,” he stated, voice taught with pain. “Looks more like a mechanic’s operation area than a secret lab.”

Slowly, Ada walked into the center of the room. Stray bolts and tarps littered the floor, catching in her stilettos and twisting her sore ankles. Other than the mess, nothing but the ladder behind them and the open door to their right offered any clues to a supposed entrance to a deeper secret, or a hint to the station’s dark founders.

“Don’t be breathing a sigh of relief just yet, Kennedy,” she countered. Peering over the mechanisms, she squinted against the window. “We haven’t seen all this oil-pit has to offer.”

She heard the cop shuffle a bit behind her, taking in their surroundings. Looking down at the control panel, she studied the buttons and levers and gauges: all unmarked, all well-used. It’d be impossible to tell which one did what without trying them all.

“Shouldn’t we tell Jill that we found this place?” asked Leon as he came up from behind Ada. She shivered. His eyes, however innocent and quick they flitted over her figure… they felt cold.

“She’s probably neck-deep in the station by now,” she called over her shoulder, waving him back. He either didn’t notice or ignored her, walking to her side and gaping over the machinery. Ada sidestepped away. “By the time we’d find her, she’ll have already made it down here.”

Leon nodded his head from side to side in agreement, sighing and changing the subject. “What’re the chances of finding that girl in this place? I mean, we did see those footprints in the garage…”

Tired of the scenery, Ada walked away from the officer and leaned over another faded control panel. “Those prints could have come from anyone.” She shrugged, trying oh-so hard to soften her tone, and added, “They were so warped we couldn’t have known if they had come from a grown man or a baby.”

She heard Leon murmur something neither positive or negative. Ada, forgetting their conversation, placed a hand to her chin and narrowed her eyes. _ One of these has got to lead to a hidden entrance somewhere… _

“Hey, wait!” shouted Leon, startling Ada from her investigation.

She whirled around in time to see a small girl run out on the walkway beyond the exit. Leon reached out to her.

“Don’t go, we’re here to help!” he called, and broke into a run.

Ada rolled her eyes. _ This _ was _ what you signed up for when you agreed to look for this girl… _ Cursing herself and her choice of footwear, she sped after him.

The walkway stretched ahead a couple of yards before turning to the left, and Ada saw the flash of blonde hair as the girl ran across it. Leon ran several paces ahead of her and gradually closed the distance between him and the child.

Just as Leon reached out to touch the flap of the girl’s collar, something white flashed on the roof of the control room ahead of them. Ada’s eyes widened, watching as that something unfurled to its full height of a man-and-a-half, straightening as far as it could with a posture unbalanced by its giant, mutated right arm that pulsed with its heartbeat. As Leon and the girl ran beneath it, a single, gigantic eye opened on its shoulder.

Ada screamed, fumbling for her gun and struggling to aim. “Leon, _ watch out _!”

Leon faltered and glanced back at her. The monster jumped.

Slamming onto the fragile grating of the catwalk, the monster crushed the footing between both Leon and the runaway child. They plummeted to the facility below, Leon taking the brunt of the blow with his injured arm under his body. Ada heard him scream out in pain.

She didn’t have much of a choice. Ada launched herself over the side of the railing, rolling into a summersault as she hit the concrete. The monster must have dislodged a pipe: smoke poured into the winding walkways by the gallons. She dove straight into the blanket of white, lead on by the sound of Leon’s anguish.

Silhouettes danced within the mist, creating arcs and jagged holes its fabric with their blows and gunshots. Ada hung back, side-stepping towards Leon’s backside in fear of stray bullets. The monster, however, ignored his assaults. Instead, it stood with its crooked back to the cop, hunched over the unconscious body of the little girl.

Leon noticed the same moment Ada did. He pushed himself off the ground with his injured arm, tears of pain streaming down his face, mouth open in a bellow of rage lost to the scream of machinery. He dove between the monster’s legs, shooting up at its eyes and shielding the girl with his body.

“Get AWAY FROM HER!” he yelled over the shrieking of the broken pipes and the monstrosity before him.

Staggering with its still-human arm covering its eyes, the monster backed away from its prey. It took labored, voiceful breaths, and Ada nearly mistook Leon’s own to be the former’s if it weren’t for his writhing form throwing itself against the haze.

Ada fired her rounds into the giant, blinking eye of the monster as she scrambled over to Leon. He doubled over himself, clutching onto his left shoulder with a grip so tight it looked as if his knuckles would burst through his skin. His back arched stiffly. It was far too twisted and entirely too distressed to be in defense of the girl beside him.

Ada reached out to him. “Leon, are you alright?”

He snapped his eyes to her from under a brow slick with sweat. He slapped her hand away from him, balancing on his knees and throwing his head back.

“Get… back…” he panted through grinding teeth. They looked as though they would break. “Save… the girl…”

She hesitated, holding her gun tighter and pulling it in an invisible tug of war between pointing it at him and returning it to her holster.

The girl whimpered, waking up, from somewhere under six feet of fog. Leon shouted. “NOW!”

Ada blindly grabbed the girl by the arm and pulled her away a mere second before her partner’s blood painted the concrete floor.

Scrambling away with the girl in hand, Ada gaped at the tormented silhouette playing against the fog. Something ripped—the deafening, sickening sound cut through the haze. Liquid spilled and dribbled off of cloth and skin and metal, pouring over broken pipes and turning the air red. Thick ropes of organic matter rose above Leon’s head as he threw it back, staring at something no-one else could see. His hand, the one that trembled as he reached up to his face… each finger was tipped with curling claws.

Ada’s eyes widened. She pulled the half-conscious girl behind her and fumbled with the gun in her other hand. The chamber was empty. _ Shit, get the bullets, inside your coat, grab the bullets NOW _—

Leon turned around to face her as the empty cases cascaded the floor like a shower of tiny bells. She rammed what stray ammo she had in her pocket into the magazine, hands shaking too much to accurately grab the concealed case in her trenchcoat. She felt the girl grab her hem. She pointed the muzzle at Leon's face.

Slowly, the fog cleared. Ada’s eyes skittered across Leon’s split skin and tattered uniform, over the dark purple-blue tentacles weaving in and out of his body, on his half-cataracted eyes that trained on her own. In the amount of time it took for her heart to beat once, he strained a smile through lips bubbling with blood and uttered a single word:

_ “Partners.” _

The monster rose from somewhere in Ada’s peripheral vision. Its human eyes, the ones encrusted with a layer of dried blood, squinted in rage as it bellowed—and charged into Leon.

Ada only saw Leon being thrown back before she instinctively lurched away. The girl, still dazed, fell under the shelter of a hanging sheet of steel from a broken generator. Ada didn’t care—she knew the girl was safe as long as she was far away from the monster. Aiming her handgun, she fired a round into the hunched beast’s shoulder-eye.

In one smooth motion, the monster rose. It rose where it should have been on its knees, past its standing height, and five feet off the ground into the air. Ada didn’t know what was happening until she saw the claw suspending it by its neck.

Leon held the beast with his mutated hand, his face a mixture of anger and confusion. The rope-like tentacles haloing his shoulders retracted back into his body, and he shuddered. His knuckles turned white with strain. The scream that escaped him sounded low, almost animal-like—a mixture of Leon’s dwindling humanity and some sort of undead greed.

With its ginormous arm, the monster knocked Leon to the ground seconds before a braided tendril burst through his palm. The latter lay there on the concrete, clutching at his shoulder. His half-blind eyes darted from the man-beast to his own appendage. Ada felt the ground quiver as the monster threw back its arms in the preparation of an ultimate downward swing. Even if she unloaded all the ammo she had into its eye, she knew nothing would stop its trajectory.

_ The hack-gun, use the hack-gun! _

Ada’s eyes widened, glancing up to the crane above the monster’s head, and didn’t even have the time to holster her firearm. Yanking the hack-gun from her coat, she pointed the flickering screen to the control room and pulled the trigger.

With a flash of brilliant yellow light, the crane came to life.

Just as the monster’s clenched fists came crashing down onto Leon’s unmoving form, the arm of the crane swung into its chest. It staggered, shrieking in furious agony—but it couldn’t react in time.

The crane tossed it towards the railing at the edge of the platform. The iron bars buckled under its weight. With a final cry that sounded almost human, the beast tumbled into the immeasurable pit of darkness below.

Ada sighed a breath she didn’t know she had been holding. Her mind echoed hollowly. All the howling, creaking, and snapping so deafening that she couldn’t discern which sounds were outside her head. Leon’s tired groan and the girl’s frightened whimper yanked her back into reality.

Aiming at the cop, she slowly drew closer. “Don’t move,” she commanded. “Any sudden moves and I’ll shoot.”

Leon glanced up to Ada, humanity still lining the edges of his milky eyes. Exhausted, he frowned. “What?” he murmured, searching her face.

Ada’s hand trembled. “I said, _ don’t move_!”

She should have shot him when she had the chance, she knew that. Now she was kicking herself that it got this far, that somehow the virus mutated and he was _ on par _ with whatever the hell just attacked them, there’s no _ way _she can take him out on her own now—

Leon darted his eyes over to the girl, still hiding under the makeshift den of metal and exposed wires. “Are you both okay?” he asked instead, words slurring.

Color rose to Ada’s face. Her chest burned with anger. “You don’t get to ask that, Kennedy, I’ve got this handled. Now stay where you are.”

Something rustled from behind her. The girl backed further into her shelter, nervously wringing both bruised hands and peering at the cop who saved her life.

Relief lined the creases on Leon’s face. He slumped on his back. “You’re okay.”

Ada pressed the muzzle of the handgun to his neck, the other hand holding the hack-gun and ready to bring the crane back around if need be. “_Stay where you are_!” she repeated, her voice shaking. All her pent-up frustration and anxiety finally broke to the surface, directed at Leon, directed at the girl, directed at that dastard Wesker who told her this would be a simple mission for good pay. She realized how naïve she was to believe it, now that she was two seconds away from losing her only lead and left with the babysitting job.

Leon’s expression changed. For the first time since their meeting, she saw genuine anger cloud behind his irises, purifying his next statement with icy clarity. “Did you even pay attention to what just happened?” His words rushed together as he fought to hold onto reality. “I never harmed you. I never even tried to—”

“But for how long will that last?” Ada pressed the barrel harder against his neck. “I don’t give a shit if we’re partners. I’ll put so much lead in you that there won’t be any organic matter for the virus to revive.”

Leon glared at the agent, steadily challenging her. “Not in front of the girl.”

Ada realized how fast she was breathing. She realized how close her finger was to pulling the trigger. She realized how far the poor girl now scrambled away from the both of them, confused and scared and defenseless, soon to be left with the murderer who killed her only protector.

Ada realized, as she watched the consciousness gradually slip from Leon’s grasp, that she was angry because she didn’t want to kill him.

“Shut up,” she snapped. Pressing the drooping handgun again onto the bruised skin of his neck, she struggled to maintain a steady tone. “Like I said, caring isn’t in my job description.”

Leon’s eyes were mere slits, his voice a whisper among the darkness swallowing him whole. “But you want it to be.”

Ada recoiled, but Leon was gone. He was lost under the lull of sleep, unaware of the world he left and the arrow with which he pierced her heart.

* * *

It felt like a lifetime before Ada lowered her gun.

The girl they saved hung back, looking from the agent to the cop at dizzying speeds. Despite her obvious best efforts, she couldn’t hide the fact that she was hyperventilating. Not even the cry of machinery could mask that.

Ada’s shoulders slumped, turning to the darkness under the broken generator and spotting the white blotch that was the girl’s uniform. _ She must be terrified. _

“It’s okay,” she called, her voice sounding more like a loud sigh than a victorious shout. “You can come out now. Nothing’s gonna hurt you.”

The girl poked her head into the fragmented light, matted blonde hair and wide blue eyes reflecting like beacons in ocean of grey and black. “Is he dead?”

Ada rose an eyebrow. Despite the ordeal she had just endured, the girl’s small voice was clear—commanding of attention. Ada sighed, shaking her head.

“No,” she answered in a voice as calm and gentle as she could manage, “he’s just sleeping,”

The girl took a step forward, studying the details of Leon’s unconscious body. Tar-stained locks fell in her face as she glanced up at the agent. “What about the monster?”

Placing both hands on her hips, Ada turned to the broken railings. “If that thing’s 'just sleeping' after that freak of a fall, I’ll eat my own coat.”

The girl smiled a little, and Ada—despite herself—couldn’t help but feel a bit relieved. All anxiety came rushing back, however, as Leon moaned in his sleep. She stared at his form, at the softly pulsing appendages that spiraled around his bruised and battered limbs, at the peaceful expression on his bloodied face. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought he was dead.

“We should get to a safer place,” Ada announced, turning back to the girl. Placing a hand on her hip, she pulled her shades down to meet her eyes unobstructed. “You have a name?”

The girl blinked at the agent, unsure of whether to trust her or not. She pushed the hair out of her face without an answer.

Ada mentally kicked herself. _ Of _ course _ she has a name, idiot, remember you’re talking to a child. _“I’m Ada,” she began awkwardly, placing a hand on her chest as to show her genuinity. “I’m here to help survivors in the city.”

The girl dropped her head, staring at Ada with big blue eyes that looked red from crying for so long. She twisted the hem of her neckline between her fingers. “Did Umbrella send you?”

For a moment, the warmth in Ada’s face vanished. She wished she would have kept the shades on—her eyes involuntarily narrowed, pinning the little girl to the concrete floor. She took a step back. Ada dropped to her haunches and attempted her warmest smile. _ Why would she ask, unless… _

“No, I’m not,” Ada answered. She saw the girl’s shoulders slump in relief—right answer. Ada held a hand out. “I’m from the FBI, and I’m here to help civilians like you. Where are your parents?”

She darted her eyes from Ada’s face to her outstretched hand, stuttering a response that struggled through tears. “I… I don’t know. My mom was at work when the sirens went off, and my dad is…”

Ada’s hand fell limp as the girl’s hesitation grew into full-fledged silence. _ Gone? Dead? From what? Something relating to Umbrella? _ She took a small step forward, still keeping eye-level with the child.

“We’ll find them,” she promised in a sweet voice that didn’t sound as fake as what she felt it should have been. “They can’t have gone far, and definitely not outside the city.”

The girl still held her silence, studying the eyes of the agent and the hand that lay empty against the air. Ada masked her frustration with a smile, not wanting to push the child but desperate to get moving again.

“But,” she continued after a pause long enough for a reply, “I’ll need your help to find them.” _ Because if my hunch is correct, they’ll lead me straight to what I’m looking for. _

Finally, the girl approached Ada and slipped her small hand into her grasp. Ada held her breath. Her hand was smaller than she had expected, soft and scarred and warm with adrenaline. How long had it been since she worked around children?

“I’m Sherry,” the girl told her. “You promise you’ll help me find my parents?”

The weight of her words fell upon Ada’s shoulders like a rock. _ No turning back now _…

“I promise,” Ada replied, shaking Sherry’s hand out of habit and sealing the deal. She rose to her feet, feeling the strain in her calves from crouching in stilettos, and finally dropped the mask. “We need to get going. I doubt your parents are still in the station, and we still haven’t found a reliable exit.”

Sherry glanced up around the ceiling. “The garage door isn’t open?”

Ada snapped her attention down to her. “It _was_ open?”

Sherry nodded. “When I ran through the garage, there were still cars coming in and out of the station. There was a really scary man yelling at the people coming out of the cars, waving a gun around…”

Hardly listening, Ada searched her mind as to where Chief Irons would put a parking garage card. Of _ course _he would try to keep her out—or in this case, trap her inside the station. And for what, so he could have the satisfaction of killing her? That greedy, pig-headed, son of a…

“Uhm… Miss Ada?”

Looking down at Sherry, Ada quirked her brow. She was staring behind her.

“Where did that officer go?” asked Sherry.

A lead dropped in Ada’s stomach. “_What? _”

Whirling around, dread growing like a gnawing hole in her chest, one of Ada’s stilettos finally gave out and snapped beneath her feet. But she didn’t notice. No, she was much more concerned about what she was seeing—or in this case, what she _ wasn’t _seeing.

Leon was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys wait several months for the next chapter, and I reward it with a cliffhanger. Sorry about that.
> 
> This was a long time coming. I had most of this done up in my usual 2-month increment for this series, and then everything happened with the pandemic, and you know the rest.
> 
> This chapter was a doozy to write since it was a mix of action and calm scenes, and it was rough nailing down the correct pacing. I'm not super happy with the outcome, I think I could have ended it a bit better. It kind of cuts off, which depending on how you look at it could fit with the tone. Nevertheless, I had a ton of fun writing Ada and Leon's interactions here. I hope you still enjoy it, though!
> 
> There's also a bit more swearing in this chapter since I didn't know how to accurately portray how frantic the characters were without doing so.
> 
> This is actually the branch-off to another multi-chapter fic I'm going to write after I finish my Burnfield Beauty and the Beast AU. It'll star Jill and Carlos (can't leave my new favorite ship out of this bandwagon), and focus on what Leon's doing when he's escaped the careful eye of Ada. Spoiler alert: it's not good.
> 
> Hope everyone's staying safe and heathly! Thank you all for being patient with this series!


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